While he complimented lawmakers for increasing funding for K-12 schools and higher education, he also criticized them for passing legislation that would cut state income tax rates for individuals and corporations. He told reporters that the bill would gut state revenues by more than $800 million.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: Gov. Jay Nixon indicated Friday that he had serious misgivings about a broad-based tax cut bill that the Missouri General Assembly has sent to his desk.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: Missouri lawmakers finished work on the bills that encompass the state's budget, sending the 2014 fiscal year plan to Gov. Jay Nixon a day before a mandated deadline.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: The Missouri House approved wide-reaching legislation cutting personal income, corporate and business taxes, sending the measure to Gov. Jay Nixon for consideration.

The House passed state Sen. Eric Schmitt's legislation, SB 253, Thursday by a vote of 103-51. That vote came a day after the Missouri Senate passed the bill by a vote of 24-9 and sent it to the House. Now Nixon will have to consider whether to sign or veto the bill.

Governor Jay Nixon (D) is threatening to lay off state workers unless Republican lawmakers fully fund the Missouri Department of Revenue's Motor Vehicles Division for a full fiscal year.

The warning comes one day after House and Senate budget negotiators agreed to only fund the state division for eight months, as a means of pressuring state Revenue officials to stop scanning and storing source documents of driver's license applicants. Nixon says he'll treat the 8-month appropriation as a full year's funding if GOP leaders don’t reverse themselves.

Missouri House and Senate budget negotiators have crafted a final version of next year's state budget.

The nearly $25 billion spending plan includes a $66 million increase for K-12 schools, and a $25 million hike for state universities and community colleges. It still does not include the Medicaid expansion proposed by Governor Jay Nixon (D), which disappointed committee member and State Senator Kiki Curls (D, Kansas City).

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: Thursday’s developments in the Missouri Capitol highlight that there’s nothing like a financial windfall to ignite bipartisan goodwill.

The latest revenue figures for Missouri government were released Thursday morning and were even rosier than expected. The news prompted Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, to announce immediately that he’d call on the General Assembly – now embroiled in crafting a new budget – to consider adding $86 million in one-time spending for capital improvements.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: Save it, spend it or give it back? That, in essence, is the growing debate in the Missouri Capitol as legislators are monitoring the state’s apparently improving income picture, which could result in a budget surplus when this fiscal year ends June 30.

House Speaker Tim Jones, R-Eureka, is adamantly in favor of the “save’’ option, and he displayed a bit of pique Monday as he blasted the state Senate for approving a FY2014 budget last week that earmarks some of the possible windfall for needed physical repairs to the state Capitol, among other things.

Missouri senators trying to target budget cuts at the agency that issues driver's licenses may have instead blocked funding for the registration of boats and mobile homes.

The Senate passed a budget plan late Monday that eliminates the entire $3.5 million allotment for the Motor Vehicle and Driver Licensing Division.

During debate, senators said the proposed cut could halt the issuance of driver's licenses. They described it as negotiating leverage to get additional information from state officials about the data collected from driver's license applicants.

After nearly eight hours of debate Monday, the Missouri Senate has passed next year’s state budget.

The roughly $25 billion spending plan still does not include Medicaid expansion, but not for a lack of trying by Democrats. Minority Floor Leader Jolie Justus offered up an amendment that would’ve added $890 million to the Social Services budget, enough to expand Medicaid to around 260,000 Missourians next year.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: Growth may be slowing, but the Missouri’s revenue stream continues to flow heavier than expected.

The latest numbers released today by state Budget Director Linda Luebbering, show that Missouri’s general-revenue collections for the current fiscal year are running at a pace that’s up 8.3 percent overall, compared to a year ago.

Missouri’s budget for the next fiscal year has been passed by the State House.

While Medicaid expansion has dominated most of the debate, spending hikes were approved in other areas. There’s an extra $65 million for K-12 schools, although the increase still falls short of fully funding the state’s public school formula. Republican Mike Lair of Livingston County chairs the Appropriations committee on Education.

The Missouri House will begin debate Tuesday on the 13 bills that make up next year’s state budget.

The three bills that encompass the state’s Medicaid program don’t include Governor Jay Nixon’s (D) proposed expansion, although House Democrats may try to offer amendments to change that. Budget chairman Rick Stream (R, Kirkwood) says the state should have more of a say in how Medicaid dollars are handled.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: State Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Glendale, expects to be in a good mood this weekend, now that the core of his proposal to cut state business taxes is part of a broader bill that has won first round approval in the state Senate.

“It’s a pretty sweeping reform of the state tax code,’’ Schmitt said, adding that he believes Missouri is on track to see the biggest income tax changes since 1929.

A Missouri Senate committee on Monday endorsed a proposal to cut the state's individual and corporate income tax rates by 1.5 percentage points. The individual rate would fall to 4.5 percent, and the corporate rate to 4.75 percent.

Senate Republicans are looking to respond to Kansas' tax cuts, which they say have caused businesses to move from Missouri across the border.

Within approximately the last twenty years, Missouri ranks among the worst states in which the gap between rich and middle-income households has widened. That’s according to a new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute.

As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, we also take note of the report’s finding in which the gap between the very richest and the poor is even larger with the top 5 percent of Missouri households having an average income 11.7 times that of the bottom fifth.

Sales tax holiday this weekend in Missouri - except for a few municipalities

It will be a big weekend for back-to-school shopping in Missouri as the state's annual sales tax holiday runs Friday through Sunday. School supplies, clothing items under $100, and personal computers under $3,500 are among the goods that will be exempt from the state's 4.2 percent tax.

Cities and counties can choose to opt out and charge local taxes, but as Missouri Department of Revenue spokesman Ted Farnen says many are taking part.

Officials at the Missouri Lottery have no strategy to generate an additional $35 million that legislative budget writers and Gov. Jay Nixon's administration had hoped would help avoid cuts to government services.

A Lottery spokesman told The Associated Press on Tuesday that its goal is to generate about $289 million for education during the fiscal year that began July 1. That would be an increase of little more than 3 percent from last year.

Missouri closed out its 2012 fiscal year with slightly better-than-expected revenues. But that doesn't necessarily translate to a budget surplus.

Figures released Tuesday show Missouri had more than $7.3 billion in general revenues during the fiscal year that ended June 30. That's up more than 3.2 percent compared with the 2011 fiscal year. And it's also better than the 2.7 percent growth rate upon which the budget had been based.

Missouri veterans homes are getting a significant boost as a result of new legislation establishing a dedicated source of funding.

Governor Jay Nixon attended a ceremonial bill signing at the St. Louis Veterans Home on Thursday.

Missouri currently has seven nursing homes which serve some 1,300 veterans. The legislation will allocate $32 million to the Missouri Veterans Commission annually, up from just $6.6 million, and will be paid for through per-patron fees paid by casinos.

Most of the big issues this legislative session were tied to the state budget, which has been passed and sent to Governor Jay Nixon. That has many political pundits wondering if the last week of the 2012 session will be anticlimactic. But as St. Louis Public Radio’s Marshall Griffin tells us, there are still a few hot-button items left to fight over.

The $24 billion spending plan passed both chambers with little difficulty, but not without some complaints. State Senator Jim Lembke (R, Lemay) was not happy with language restoring a health care program for blind Missourians. He says he’ll file a constitutional objection.

With a Friday deadline looming, Missouri lawmakers finally reached a compromise on putting the final touches on the state budget.

The agreement addresses veterans’ homes, university funding and other sticking points: First, budget negotiators agreed to spread an additional $3 million among several universities, including Southeast Missouri State, and dropped a proposal to give $2 million to that school alone. Also, lawmakers will have to craft a Higher Education funding formula by the end of next year, which would be implemented in July 2014.

The Senate has made no progress on persuading Jason Crowell (R, Cape Girardeau) to stop blocking every bill in the Senate, including one to fund veterans’ homes. He says he has no objections to transferring gaming revenues from early childhood programs to nursing homes for military vets, but he won’t allow it or any other bill to advance unless the House strips more than $2 million in extra funding from Southeast Missouri State University. President Pro-tem Rob Mayer (R, Dexter) says other Senators have sided with Crowell on the issue.

The Missouri House has approved legislation that would strip state funding from an institute that trains women for careers in politics.

The Sue Shear Institute for Women in Public Life is located at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and bills itself non-partisan. Its detractors, however, argue the Institute caters to Democrats - a characterization that Springfield Democrat Sara Lampe strongly disputes.

The Missouri Senate has been shut down by one Senator over which version of legislation for veterans’ homes will be adopted.

Jason Crowell (R, Cape Girardeau) and several allies tied up the Senate for nearly 12 hours Monday night and are provoking a showdown with Senate leaders. In addition to using a filibuster to block the veterans’ homes bill, Crowell is using several motions to block all bills from being debated.

“We have some issues that need to be resolved in the Senate before we move forward, and they’re gonna be resolved one way or the other," Crowell said. "I will continue to make this series of motions on anything else that we do.”

House and Senate budget negotiators resumed talks today, but still have not resolved differences over how to fund veterans homes and health care for the blind.

They agreed on numerous budget items that have garnered little to no controversy. The House won out on its proposed pay raise for state workers – those earning under $70,000 a year would get a 2 percent raise starting in July. Kirk Schaefer (R, Columbia), the Senate’s chief negotiator, says he didn’t mind accepting the House’s position on pay raises.